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You're seven tonight, but let
me back up to Hosea, chapter four, chapters four through 10
are written, we said, in the reformat, which is a lawsuit
format taken up by God against the nation Israel. So this book
is dealing with God's discipline within within his own household
under court proceedings. So chapter four is the general
summary of this lawsuit. And you can see this from verses
one and two. For the Lord has a case or a
wreath against the inhabitants of the land, because there is
no stability. OK, faithfulness, word for stability,
or chesed, no stability, no loyal love, no knowledge of God in
the land. OK, that's the general statement
there of the theological evil, which breaks out into verse two
type evil, which is social evil, swearing, deception, murder,
stealing and adultery. So that, again, is a general
statement there made at the introduction of the case. And now we're in
chapter six and seven. We're looking at all the details
of the social sins that break out of that theological evil
of verse one. Now, we've dealt considerably
with theological evil, the suppression of the knowledge of God that
is quite natural to the same nature. And the nation Israel
failed to know God in every detail of their lives. They failed.
to learn loyalty to him. And so now in the case, we're
watching the fallout of that failure in the social sphere,
how it affects society at large. So loyalty to God, as we said
last week, is the chief aim of sanctification. And God trained
that nation to learn loyalty to him for 700 years. And at
the end of 700 years, there was no loyalty. And therefore, you
begin to see the nation fall to pieces. And all kinds of social
chaos begins to take over society. Now, that same principle works
in general for all nations that go negative volition to the word
of God and they kick God to the curb in every area of life. When
a nation does that, you can bet your very last dollar that the
whole society is going to fall to pieces around you. It doesn't
matter how great the economy is. It'll be destroyed. It doesn't
matter how great the military is. It'll fall to pieces. It
doesn't matter how great the reputation is of that country.
Once a nation abandons God, God abandons the nation. Now, God
says, in effect, basically, that if you don't want me around and
you don't want my restraining grace, then fine, you can have
it your way and we'll see how you like that. And he just starts
pulling back the grace and gradually we clobber ourselves. Now, the
clobbering we saw last week at the end of chapter six. was these
pockets of professional criminals all over the Northern Kingdom.
They were being hired to carry out vengeance killings. Murder
was rampant. That was the main social disturbance
or sin that we were studying last week as a fallout of their
failure to learn loyalty. And we said that you have basically
two facets of murder, as you always have with every sin. The
actual overt murder of an individual But also there's the underlying
desire to murder what the Bible calls hatred. Now, everybody
realizes this. I mean, nobody just picks up
a knife one day and goes out and slit somebody's throat and
there's absolutely no reason behind it whatsoever. Obviously,
there's a mental attitude, sin of hatred already there. So murder
in the Bible is far more than just the overt killing of an
innocent person. Murder and the spirit of murder
actually has all kinds of facets in the Mosaic law. Some things
that you would never think are placed under murder are in the
Old Testament placed in the spirit of murder. For example, just
the neglect of taking care of an elderly person. Just, you
know, feeding tube falls out of their mouth and you just don't
want to get off your tail and put it back in because you're too
concerned about you. Now, that is the spirit of murder
under the Old Testament law. That's murder. And so don't confine
murder just to someone who uses a gun or a knife on somebody.
It goes far, far deeper than that. Now, this week, we want
to deal with a second fallout of their failure to learn loyalty.
And these are the problems of fraud and deceit. This passage
in Chapter 7 sheds some light on the inner workings of our
sin nature, the mental processes that we go through that eventually
work their way out into overt social sin that is habitual. Habitual sins, as most habits,
all habits don't take too long to get started. I just do it
a few times and then there's a habit and then we reinforce
that habit through a cyclical pattern. And each time we go
through the cycle, we find ourselves one rung lower on the ladder
and it becomes easier and easier and easier to go through that
cycle till we're all in a ball of wax and it reaps chaos in
society. Now, the general principle starts
in Hosea 6.11. Okay, 6.11b. Okay. actually goes with Chapter 7.
So the verse division is unfortunate, but you can clearly see that
the word starting when. Connects with Chapter 7 when
OK, so we'll start in the middle of verse 11. Yeah, verse 11. When I restore the fortunes of
my people, when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim
is uncovered and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely
or fraudulently. There's our word. That's the
key word. The thief enters in bandits raid outside. And they
do not consider in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness.
Now their deeds are all around them. They're before my face
with their wickedness. They make the king glad and the
princes with their lives. Now, this is this is in the form
of a principle. OK, when I restore the fortunes
of my people, when I would heal Israel, we could translate as
whenever I go to restore her, whenever I go to heal my people. And what this is saying is that
God makes attempts to heal the nation. OK, this is a period
in Israel's history when she's wounded. We say she's got a big
open wound and God is trying to go in. He's trying to heal
the wound. So the way he does this is he
sends his prophets and the prophets have the word of God and the
word of God can heal these people if they'll respond to the prophet's
word. And so he says, I can heal you if you'll turn to me. So
he's initiating with the nation. He's asking them to respond to
him. Turn to me and I'll heal you. Now, that's the attempt
that he made during this period to heal and restore the nation.
But every time he goes in to heal him, it says that the iniquity
of Ephraim is uncovered and the evil deeds of Samaria. Now, here's
the so here's the picture. I send my prophets in with the
word of God to mend your wound. And as the word goes forth, we
find there are even more transgressions surfacing. It's sort of like
a doctor who goes in to do the surgery and he has a specific
task or operation that he's going to undertake. And once he gets
in to remove whatever or fix whatever it is, he finds more,
which is a common thing. And so God sends in the prophets.
They shine the light of the word, the light of the word of God
on the problem so they can get it all fixed. And the light of
the word reveals there's more sin, there's more evil. And so
we have a bigger problem than we thought here. Four, OK, and
that four introduces a three part indictment against the nation.
And this introduces us to the eighth commandment. Remember,
the prophets bring indictment against the nation in terms of
the law of Moses, that was the law or rule of life for the Israelite,
and they broke the treaty and they will bring indictment then
against the nation for breaking that treaty. And they will do
so on the basis primarily of the Ten Commandments. Here's what you have to understand
about the Ten Commandments, is that they're the base, they're
the foundation. And all the other laws, all the other specifics,
all the case law and so forth, is merely more detailed explanation
of those Ten Commandments. They're just giving you all the
variances. That's why I say murder. Murder is like just not even
taking care of an elderly person, you know, just being neglectful.
Because that is an element that is involved under the breaking
of thou shalt not murder. So there's a three-part indictment
here. The first is general, and then there are two subdivisions
of this general accusation. For they deal falsely, that's
the general. It should read, they practice
fraud. It's a word for business practices
that are fraudulent. They practice fraud. Then to
show how they practice fraud, or the means that he uses to
divide it up into two secondary instruments, one, the thief enters
in, and two, bandits right outside. The obvious contrast in that
verse is the individual thief on the inside of the house, burglary,
and the group of bandits outside the house on the highway. So
one is an individual thief. The other is a gang of thieves.
But there's something deeper than just the individual thief
here burglarizing a home or the gang of thieves beating someone
up on their property on the road. The gang of bandits would technically
include any corporation of men. That's correct. It could be a
crime syndicate, could be a corporate business, could be a religious
business, all of whom then use their power to defraud people. So these two categories include
the kid off the streets, the punk who breaks and enters the
individual thief. But it also includes the big
corporations that defraud people as they allocate all their power
and use it to plunder. So in verse three. And down in
verse three, he's gonna add the government as the third entity
that engages in fraud. Okay, so we'll find three avenues
of fraud. The individual stealing property,
the corporation stealing property, and the government stealing property.
Okay, all three are means of breaking the eighth commandment,
that you shall not steal. Now, we're gonna go through some
of the verses back in the law that explain what it means, you
shall not steal. You say, well, we all know what
you shall not steal means. It means you just don't go take
somebody's things, and that's stealing. Sorry, you missed it. OK, we all thought we knew what
stealing meant until we actually got into the details of the law
and you find out, boy, it's a lot broader than this. You know,
it's a lot more than just that. It goes way, way farther than
just you taking somebody's things. So we'll go back and look at
some verses about stealing. And all we're going to be doing
here is just amplifying what the law of Moses says about the
Eighth Commandment. OK. That's what the details of
the law did. They amplified these 10 commandments.
And this is how the Holy Spirit brings conviction. So you can't
be convicted by the Holy Spirit on generalities. The only way
the Holy Spirit will ever bring conviction in your life is on
very specific points. OK, that are based in scriptural
scriptural norms. Now, that shouldn't strike you
as too unusual, because if the Holy Spirit's objective in bringing
conviction of sin is true, how could he reach How could he reach
his objective by just convicting you of some general thing? I
mean, if some woman comes in my office and she says, my husband's
a jerk, what do I do? Well, you haven't told me anything. How is he being a jerk? You have
to give me more information. What exactly is he doing that
makes him a jerk? Or if some man comes in and he says, well,
my wife just doesn't respect me. Well, you haven't told me
anything at all, okay? You have to tell me what it is
he did that is disrespectful. Then we can start to work with
the problem. So the Holy Spirit is showing
Israel how they broke the commandment. You shall not steal. OK, he's
getting details. And since we're dealing with
property and property rights, then ultimately this gets traced
back further than the Moses mosaic law gets traced all the way back
to the first divine institution in Genesis 1, 26 to 28. See,
the first divine institution is responsible labor, labor or
dominion. And God set out that institution
to go forth, man to go forth and to subdue and to have dominion
over the earth. OK, and so there is work to do
and work generates a product now to even get going. OK, there
has to be such a thing as property that man is responsible for.
If man had anything to work, didn't have anything to work
with, then we couldn't be held responsible for anything. OK,
so God gave man the earth as his property to work and make
productive. That's the whole purpose of the
first divine institution. God has made man in his image
to work the earth and develop it for God. And some commentators
have gone so far as to say that the only the only thing that
was actually at creation in ship shape condition was the Garden
of Eden. And if you step one foot outside
that Garden of Eden, it was just barren wasteland and that the
program for Adam was to cultivate that garden and spread it over
the face of the whole earth and clean up that barrenness. Now,
that labor is what will later be protected. under the commandment,
you shall not steal. So back in Genesis 126, we have
the origin of the concept of private property. And that's
where all begins. Christianity, and don't ever
compromise this point when you're in a discussion or you'll be
in a load of trouble. This is an axiom of the Christian
faith. OK, said another way, we have just simply said that
socialism is anti-biblical and can in no way ever be reconciled
to scripture. The Christian socialist just
hasn't read very carefully. Even on page one of the scripture
is presupposed that there is such a thing as private property
over which men are responsible and that therefore it can be
stolen. If it wasn't ours, it couldn't be stolen. There's just
a general public. What are you going to go down
to the post office and steal your brick? You know, try it. It's not going
to work. Now, that's the basis of the commandment. You shall
not steal. I mean, how could someone steal? if there's no
such thing as private property. So the commandment not to steal
presupposes private property that is available to steal. Then
we have the various means that man has conjured up to steal,
and this can be in verse 1, the individual and the corporation,
and in verse 3, the government. Okay, all three of these are
means or agencies or agents used to steal. Now contrast that,
okay, the agencies of theft, with some more truths from Scripture
as to how to acquire property, properly. There are three ways
that the Bible speaks of as the proper way to acquire property.
OK, there are basically only these three ways. All other ways
are illegitimate. The first way is to work for
it. Again, first divine institution, work and earn money, earn capital
and purchase property. Second, you can inherit it and
the nation Israel, each family was given a plot of land. And
it would be passed down through family inheritance. They didn't
have inheritance taxes. Inheritance taxes are a form
of theft. You're taking away the hard earned goods of a family.
And scripturally, there's no right for man to do that. So
we have working. First of all, working. Then we
have inheriting. And the third way is by gift. Someone can give
you some piece of property or something, some item. Now, these are three godly ways
of acquiring property. Theft. is always the fourth way. Theft wants to skirt around these
three legitimate means of acquiring property. So let's turn back
to Exodus 22 and have a study of what theft is, a short one.
These are just some examples of theft. So we've sort of broadened
our ideas of what it means, you shall not steal. Now, as we go
through this passage, I want you also to notice something.
Notice how theft is dealt with in the nation Israel. There's
a biblical solution to the theft problem, and it's not locking
someone in jail for six months. They didn't do that because that
didn't solve the problem. Every time someone steals something,
there is a destruction of wealth. Now, how do you solve the problem
of the destruction of wealth by confining someone in a jail?
You haven't solved anything. In fact, what you've done is
you've destroyed more wealth because now you've got to support
the building that they've got to be confining, the electricity, three hot meals
a day, TV, library, and everything else that goes along with the
program. So it's not solving the problem. OK, to confine someone,
we're just destroying more wealth. Restitution is the biblical answer
to theft. If someone comes and steals your
car, the answer in scripture is that he doesn't just go buy
you a car. He goes and buys you four cars. How would you like
that? No wonder, you know, when a person
gets caught stealing today and they go before the judge and
says, OK, this time you'll slap on the wrist, go home. Well,
they do it again because they have no respect for labor and
what labor can produce. In the Mosaic law, if you steal,
you're not walking out free. There's restitution, so watch
for it. Exodus 22, 1. If a man steals an ox or a sheep
and slaughters it or sells it, in other words, it's no longer
in his possession now, you're not getting it back. He shall
pay five oxen for the ox and four sheep for the sheep. Several
things to notice about this verse. First, they've gone on to someone
else's property, taken property away from their property and
sold it or killed it. And in that case, he must pay
restitution four or five times what he stole. Now, there's several
reasons for this. This isn't just trying to be
mean. One is because you have to replace the goods that were
stolen, first of all. But the addition is that there
were lost profits for the time that the good was out of the
possession of the owner. So all the time it was gone,
the owner couldn't use it for whatever use he needed to generate
profit. You also have the fact that just because your good was
stolen, It doesn't mean that you're always going to get an
equal replacement. If my car is stolen, it wouldn't be that
big a deal if it was. But let's say it's worth $250
book value. I probably could replace that
thing for $250 for something that runs. And what about the
inconvenience? During all the time I don't have
the car, I've got to take a taxi or something. So what about all
that? So to cover all those things, as well as just the emotional
turmoil of having to deal with the whole situation, the Bible
puts the mark at 400 to 500 percent restitution. You see, this law
has wisdom built into it. When you go through this and
you read these, I don't want you to say, oh, well, that's
Exodus 22, that's the Mosaic law and so forth, has no application
to us as the church. No, we're not under it as a law
system, but look for the wisdom principles. Don't be so naive
as to think that God would just say something randomly. and have
no wisdom principles underlying it. There are certain reasons
why the law is designed this way. If you can think for just
a moment, what do you suppose would be one of the benefits
if the courts went over to a restitution concept rather than a rehabilitation
concept? Number one, what would have to
happen to the person who stole? Well, he'd have to work his tail
off Okay? And in the very process of working
his tail off to pay off what he stole times, you know, up
to 400, 500%, he's saying, look, here's a habit pattern I've never
picked up. He's actually having to work
for once in his life to actually produce something. And so you're
generating a new behavior pattern in him. And he's not sitting
in jail, in other words, with 30 other criminals picking up
new techniques on how to steal better when I get out of here
so I don't get caught. So many of these punishments have wisdom
just built right into them. Exodus 22, 4 has another concept
of theft. Verse 4, if what he stole is
actually found alive in his possession, whether an ox or a donkey or
a sheep, he shall pay double. OK, so in this case, restitution
is only 200 percent. Why not four or five hundred
percent? Because he got the exact property that was stolen back.
OK, so he does have equal replacement in this case. So now all we're
dealing with is, well, the animal's gone for some time and he couldn't
get profit out of that way and so forth, emotional turmoil.
So the restitution in this case is an esteem. OK, so you can
see, again, there's wisdom to all this. Further, verses five
and six. OK, now this gets into an area
you never think of when it comes to you shall not steal. But this
is part of that commandment. So pay attention to it and see
how far these these commandments were. OK, don't you know, when
you read these, when you're reading the Old Testament, if you read
the Bible to yourself, don't don't read these real, real fast, because
you'll you'll miss a certain sensitivity. Now, watch verse
five. If a man lets a field or a vineyard
be grazed bare and lets his animal loose so that it grazes in another
man's field, he shall make restitution from the best of his own field
and the best of his own vineyard. If a fire breaks out, let's see,
that's just negligence for his own property. And then he does
something stupid. See, that's that's death. Verse six, if a
fire breaks out and spreads to thorn bushes so that stacked
grain or the standing grain or the field itself is consumed,
he who started the fire shall surely make restitution. This
deals with what we would call accidental liability. This would
be considered in scripture as a part of you shall not steal.
Now, you see, we think that we understand the commandments all
of a sudden, the Bible goes and says something like, Well, you
should not say, oh yeah, physically I shouldn't take a pack of bubblegum.
The Bible says you steal when you don't care for another person's
property. It's just the act of neglect for someone else's property.
That's stealing. You don't have to be guilty of
physically removing bubblegum. You can be guilty just by not
taking care of someone else's property, being neglectful. That's
basically the underlying concept of theft, is that you just don't
give a you know what about other people's things. You don't care. Now, we have a serious problem
with this in our society. I mean, just look at the kids.
I mean, you put them on school campus, they tear the thing to
pieces in two hours, you know. And it's not only when they do
that to other people's stuff, it's when they do it to their
own stuff. I have a theory about that. And that's the idea that
basically we have we're out of control. Here we are. We come
up to Christmas. Monetarily, we're out of control with how
much stuff we've got to buy our kids for Christmas every year. I mean,
I remember talking to Jack Culverson about this one time. He's like,
well, you know, we were happy to get one thing for Christmas, you know,
and here we are, we shower with, you know, all sorts of games,
all sorts of toys, all sorts of flashing lights, you know,
it goes on and on and on. And what do you think the kids do?
They tear their stuff up. Why tear it up? Well, we just
get more. Just keep bringing it in. Loads of it. Wheelbarrow
is just sitting in my room while I tear it up. And so, you know,
no respect for labor, no respect for property, no respect whatsoever. And that's where we are. And
this is all theft, by the way. Yeah, little bitty kids, thefts,
thieves. Now, there are some more crimes
which we'll look at. Exodus 22, 16, another particular area that
you'd never dream would be counted as theft. If a man seduces a
virgin who is not engaged and lies with her, he must pay a
dowry for her to be his wife. So here virginity can be stolen.
Who did it belong to? Well, it belonged to her future
husband, her right man. And so the man who took it stole
from her future husband. It was hers to give to her husband.
Now she doesn't have it to give to him, can never be restored.
So the penalty is this man has to pay the dowry and he has to
take her as his wife. Now, what's the wisdom in that?
Well, here you have a girl. Just think she's damaged goods
in that society. She doesn't have any virginity
to give to her husband. And so the word of God says, if you're
responsible enough to play around and have sex outside of marriage
and you're responsible enough to marry that girl and pay the
dowry, and that's your responsibility. So that's another form of theft
that's embedded in here. OK, imagine how that might transform
society. Now, as we look at these, try
to catch the spirit of the text. OK, there's just there's a spirit
or a mental attitude that accompanies this whole thing. And that's
what you want to kind of capture. As you look at the details, you
shall not steal. It basically means you respect
property, not just yours, but other people's as well. Now,
let's turn to Hosea 7. Having seen some of what you
shall not steal means, and there are many other variations, we
don't have time to go through them all. But now when he says in
Hosea 7, 1, that they deal falsely or they deal fraudulently, whether
it's an individual, the corporation or the government in verse 3,
Now, what are we going to think of? OK, we're just going to think
of somebody, you know, just breaking and entering a burglar or something.
Nowhere to think much wider than that. Sex outside of marriage. Stealing someone that's under
this. OK, it could be simply just neglect of somebody else's
property. You know, that could have been
the main thing that was going on in the Northern Kingdom. We're
not told. OK. But it's just the I don't care attitude. So you
see, these commands are a lot more than just the narrow concept
that we often think. So when we read in Hosea seven,
verse two, they and they can they do not consider in their
hearts that I remember all their wickedness. Now, their deeds
are all around them. They're before my face. When he says
that at the beginning, that they do not consider in their hearts,
the heart in the Old Testament, the L.A.V. L.A.V. L.A.V. really, but pronounced L.A.V. OK. The heart in the Old Testament
is a very broad term and encompasses the mind, the conscience and
other things here. What he's saying is they do not.
Their consciences are destroyed. They don't even consider in their
conscience. All this theft is going on doesn't even prick their
conscience, we would say. So they destroy the conscience.
How do you destroy the conscience? Well, God's word comes to you
and your conscience says, do the word and you say no. And
so that has a negative effect on your conscience. Next week,
the word comes and your conscience says, do the word a little softer,
but it still says, do the word. And you say no. And you do this
week in, week out. And you say no, no, no, no, no
to the word of God. And you keep going through that cycle. And
every time you go through that cycle, you violate the conscience
one more time and you find yourself one more rung down on that ladder
until you violate it and you violate it and you violate it
point after point after point until you eventually shut your
conscience down. You sear it. is how the New Testament
calls it. And we call that a condition,
a condition of deep, deep carnality, or some people call it compound
carnality. Now, their deeds are all around them, he says. Now,
that that's a picture in the Hebrew, it's a word picture.
The picture is this. These peoples have wrapped themselves
up in a blanket, so they don't think that God can see them anymore.
OK, so they're all wrapped up and hidden from God. And God
says, you blanket heads, I'm right here. I'm staring you right
in the face. I can see all the property theft
of you people. Okay, that's the concept in verse
two. I'm right here and you have so
destroyed your conscience by violating it and violating and
violating it repeatedly that now you think that you're all
wrapped up in a blanket and because you can't see me, I can't see
you. I'm standing right in front of you. Now, it's always that
way with our sin. You're not getting away with
anything. That's ridiculous. But these people think that they
are. Now, Hosea 7, 3, here it extends into the area of government.
So with verse 3 together with verse 1, we now have the three
agencies of theft, the individual, the corporation, and the government.
With their wickedness, they make the king glad and the princes
with their lies. Okay, so you have political expediency
as the order of the day throughout the entire social order. The
people that were supposed to be, you know, the leaders of
the people, supposed to be the godly examples to the entire society
were the people committing the thievery in mass. It's all power
lust. It's control lust. And they can't
control their sin natures any longer. The sin nature is just
spinning out of control here at all levels of society. Now,
we want to conclude tonight with verses 4 through 7. This is a
strange section dealing with a baker. Yes, sir? Okay. These are gigantic ovens. You
put a grill to fire in, and then when you heat it up, it will break the
coals out. Well, some people say these are
the portable ovens here, the clay ones. Okay. Oh, yummy. Yummy. If he cheated
you, like he did some kind of fractional sitting on the bread. Okay. Fortunately, in this case,
the baker is not going to get roasted himself, but we'll see. Okay. The baker. That's a life of life. I fry this kind of thing. That's
Lex Talia on us. All right. Now, there are certain
procedures to bread baking in the ancient world, and these
procedures illustrate the same procedures that we go through
as we work our way into deep, deep carnality. So that's why
this strange section is in there. Now, that word in verse one that
we said is the word fraud. They deal falsely, the word falsely.
That word also has an element of deceit. And if you think about
thievery, thievery always involves some aspect of deceit. OK, so
but here we're going to shift over from the emphasis we just
emphasized on theft over to the side of deceit that underlies
the theft and how this works its way out in our sin nature.
OK, this gets us into some political intrigue and conspiracy in the
Northern Kingdom and the high levels of government. So before
we get into the baker and the oven, let's go to Genesis four
to see the principle. It's easier to see in Genesis
four, and then we'll come back to Hosea. the oven and see what
he's talking about, why it's talking about making bread in
a hot oven. There's a there's a parallel,
obviously, and now Genesis four, seven, we have a fundamental
principle of the same nature. This is God to Cain, right? Cain and Abel. You remember the
story. If you do well, Cain, will not your countenance be
lifted up? And if you do not do well, Sin is crouching at
the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it.
Now, what this is picturing, where it says sin is crouching
at the door, is the picture of an animal ready to attack. He's all tense. Every muscle
in the body of the animal is tense and is ready to go. Now,
why does God use this crouching and this attack picture for the
sin nature? Because there's a warning in
here to Cain about the path he's taking in life. the road he's
going down. It's also a warning to every
believer. If you do not do well, see there, that means if you
make it a habit of defying the Word of God and destroying your
conscience by going negative to the Word, negative to the
Word, over and over and over, then sin is crouching at the
door. And your sin nature lies there like an animal that's just
poised to attack. It's just ready to explode. And so all this negative
volition gets locked up in the sin nature when we train it in
negative volition repeatedly. And eventually, the sin nature
gets to the point where it's beyond our control. OK, there's
a point at which we can control it, yes, but the more we go negative
to the word of God, the less ability we have to control it
and the sin nature becomes like a wild animal and we can't control
it any longer. And you've all seen this in society.
You know, there's people who say, well, I don't have a problem
with eating. I don't have a problem with drinking. I don't have a
problem with lusting, you know, and it's these very people that
have a problem with eating and drinking and lusting. It has reached a
point where they have so trained their sin nature to respond to
whatever stimulus it is that they just can't stop it from
responding to whatever stimulus it is. And if they say they don't
have a problem with it, they're just in denial. And we've all seen it. So every time the stimulus appears
in front of them, just like clockwork, the sin nature pounces on it.
OK, and it fulfills its desire. It's hungry. So let's look at
the illustration of the baker and his oven. And then we're
going to look at history for a moment, see what he's referring
back to. Hosea 7, 4. They are all adulterers. OK,
now there's your word for idolaters, the spiritual adultery. They
are all idolaters. The idolater is the nation here
that is not responding to their right God. And therefore, they
have created a negative vacuum in their soul. See, the nation
Israel is made for her God. When she rejects him, it's like
a right woman rejecting her right man. And immediately she begins
to respond to something else. And the something else that they
began to respond to in the nation was all the wrong gods and goddesses,
all the idols, all the imaginations of their own heart. And God says
they're all idolaters. Now, he makes the analogy. OK,
the comparison is introduced by the word like in verse four.
They're all adulterers like an oven. OK, verse five is a parenthetical
remark. So we're going to skip over that
when we get there on over to verse six and then we'll come
back to five. So let's start the analogy in verse four and
just read through. Skipping verse five. They are all adulterers,
like an oven heated by the baker who ceases to stir up the fire
from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened. Verse six. For their hearts are like an
oven as they approach their plotting. Their anger smolders all night.
In the morning it burns like a flaming fire. All of them are
hot like an oven and they consume their rulers. All their kings
have fallen. None of them calls on me. Well,
there's maybe the baker there. Not the baker himself. Somebody
else gets roasted, don't they? We'll learn who. Now, let's look
at this through the ancient bread making procedures. Like an oven
heated by the baker. Here's what they did. The baker
would start his fire in the evening. And he would just leave the fire.
He let it smolder all night long. And he'd leave the dough till
it was leavened. So he'd get the fire started.
He'd get the dough going. And he'd leave them. OK, then
in the morning he would rise up, he'd go to the fire and he'd
stir it up. OK, then the bread was leavened
by that time, by the morning, and the fire was really hot.
OK, so his first procedure, he would light the fire. Second,
he would mix the dough. Then he leaves it all night.
Finally, the fire was ready in the morning and the dough was
ready. Now, this is a picture that Hosea says, OK, this is
what we call a wisdom teaching in the prophets. There's a parallel
here. And you obviously have to study forever to pull out
because we're not a part of this culture. We're not accustomed
to these things. So we have to go into a lot of detail to figure
out what you're talking about. But all this has analogies to
our sin nature. OK, so we can sort of outline
the procedure. There are four basic steps I've been over with
you before. I'll say more about let's let's see if we can find
the four analogies. Basically, he lights the fire.
OK, he prepares the dough. The dough leavens overnight.
The fire gets hotter and hotter and hotter by morning. Notice
there's a lot of time between steps two and three. It's the
time when this guy goes and takes a nap, right? He sleeps. So the
first two steps occur in the evening. The last two steps occur
in the morning. OK, now the fire is still still going. It's going
the whole time, all night long, and it gets hotter and hotter
and hotter. Also, the dough is leavening
all night long. Right now, in verse six, we get
the analogy on the sin nature side here for their hearts. OK, so now he's likening the
sin nature to an oven. Their hearts are like an oven.
In other words, the heart follows the same procedures. Their hearts
are like an oven, meaning they have started. OK, this is when
you start to go negative volition to the word of God in some area
of life. OK, the sin nature has gotten started on a habit pattern
and you keep committing, you start committing this sin over
and over and over. And the sin nature is now starting to get
stuck in a habitual sin pattern. And that's like the baker getting
the fire started. By morning, the sin nature is totally trained
into this habit pattern and is prepared to do its worst. They're
locked in a negative pattern, and the sin nature at this point
is just ready to jump on whatever the stimulus is that puts them
over the edge. Now, what about the dough? Well,
the dough is the sin pattern itself. Whatever it is that they
first committed and that they didn't handle with 1 John 1,
9 procedures, And they let it grow out of control. OK, see,
by morning, it's leavened the whole lump of dough. And they've
committed it over and over and over in their hearts. By morning,
it's worked its way into their thought patterns continually.
And that is a combination for a deadly situation, literally. So he describes it. As they approach
their plotting, their anger smolders all night. In the morning, it
burns like a flame. OK, so see the increase it incurs?
By the morning, it's a huge raging fire. Now, that was the warning
of Genesis four, seven, that if you continue to feed your
sin nature, there's going to come a time when you lose control
of your own sin nature. It just gets it just gets so
bad. Now, this is a mark, a mark of compound carnality. So the
morning by morning time at the end of verse six, that's when
they would take the bread and they would put it in the oven
and bake it up. Right. So the oven is all hot. They
put it in the oven and they make the finished product of bread.
Now, at the point that it's baked and it's finished, the dough
is no longer pliable. You can't manipulate it. It's
a loaf of bread. It's no longer pliable. It's
a finished product. So what he's saying is that once
the sin nature reaches that spot where it's no longer pliable,
you've done irreparable damage. Now, this thing has been heating
all night. The sin nature has been working
away. And you slowly move from that sin being a minor detail
in life till it's overwhelming your life and there's no return.
Now, Hosea 7 5 is put in there as an example of how they encouraged
the fire to get going and heat up their sin nature. On the day
of our king, we don't know if that was his birthday or anniversary
of his coronation, but it's some kind of official holiday of the
king. On the day of our king, the princes
became sick with the heat of wine. OK, that means they had
a big party and they had too many bottles of wine and they
got sick. So they're having a big drunken party on this festive,
kingly occasion. He stretched out his hand with
the scoffers. Now, the scoffers, these are
the people in Hebrew, Lutz, L-U-T-Z. These are the people that are
not pliable. OK, they're the finished product.
They're the bread that has already come out of the oven. OK, they're
sin natures. are thoroughly cooked. OK, and
they're just waiting to pounce on any opportunity that arises.
And notice these scoffers are in the political administration.
They're the princes and they are. These people are hateful
to the word of God. They're arrogant. And this is
the kind of person that was in national leadership. OK, so you
have the king, you have the princes, all the leadership. They're all
involved in compound carnality and they're all working together.
And boy, let me tell you something, when You have this kind of an
administration trying to govern a nation. You have got a serious
problem on your hand, a serious problem. Hosea 7, 7 is the climax. All of them are hot like an oven
and they consume their rulers. All their kings have fallen.
None of them calls on me. Now, this is actually referring
to a set of historical events in the political administration
of the Northern Kingdom. Here's what happened. OK, look,
look at these reigns of these men. OK, this is these these
guys over here, all the southern I mean, the northern kingdom,
all that's in northern. Don't worry about that. We're just interested in
these guys over here toward the end of their kingdom. The ninth
dynasty, Hosea, that's the end of it. OK, not Hosea, the prophet
Hosea, the king. Now, the last king to rule any length of time,
really, for the most part, was Jeroboam II. You can see he reigned
41 years. Look at that. OK. It was during
his reign that Jonah was a prophet. We study his prophecy. You know,
he runs away from God toward Tarshish and he gets his tail
back in gear and heads to Nineveh and he preaches and gets upset
because everybody repents. But Jonah also had another prophecy
in Second Kings that talks about that the northern kingdom would
become prosperous under Jeroboam II reign. And so that happened. And at the end of his reign,
Hosea starts to minister. But apparently this chapter that
we're reading right here. was written much closer to 721
BC, much closer to the end of Hosea's ministry, okay? Because he gives us quite a historical
analysis here. Now, what had happened? Let's look at it this way, okay?
What do you do the night before? You start the fire, you get the
dough ready, right? Under Jeroboam, okay, we're still
talking about theft and deceit, okay? Theft had been encouraged
as a governmental policy. It may have been, you know, Jeroboam
said, I will move this guy's boundary over there, his property
boundary. It may have been negligence, but all of that is simply theft
or thou shalt not steal. As time went on, it got worse
and worse as you go through this list of kings. And it's like
the oven getting hotter and hotter and hotter as morning gets closer. And they had less and less and
less respect for private property. They had less and less respect
for the sanctity of life. So the government was seizing
property left and right. They were, you know, murders and so
forth, all kinds of vengeance killing. Now, this is the kind
of thing that had worked its way into the national life of
Israel, and it began to work its way in at the upper levels
of political administration. Everyone in that kingdom was
trying to grab for the power position. Now, turn to 2 Kings
15 8 to see what happened. As the fire got hotter and hotter
and hotter, something was taking place. You can see it, in other
words, in the life of the nation Israel. They're like the fire
in the oven heating up. 2 Kings 15, 8. In the 38th year of Azariah,
king of Judah, Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam, became king
over Israel. We just saw Jeroboam ruled 41
years. Here comes Zechariah, his son,
and the verse says he ruled in Samaria for six months. You look
at that six months, would you call that political instability?
What happened to him? Verse 10 is what happened to
him. Then Shalom, the son of Jabez, conspired against him.
We have political conspiracy and struck him before the people
and killed him and reigned in his place. See the power struggle
taking place. So Zechariah is murdered after
six months. Now we come to the next guy,
Shalom, verse 13, Shalom. Son of Jabesh became king in
the 39th year of Uzziah, king of Judah. He reigned one month
in Samaria. One month? Why? What happened to him? Verse
14. Then Menachem, son of Gadi, went
up from Tirzah and came to Samaria and struck Shalom, son of Jabesh,
in Samaria and killed him and became king in his place. Okay,
more political conspiracy. Another assassination. I mean,
they're really heating things up. They're really cooking. This
guy, Menahem, he actually makes it for 10 years, OK, because
he made some military maneuvers that basically scared people
in his own nation. And then, you know, when Assyria
was a threat, he he appears to tax all the rich people to pay
off the king of Assyria. So, you know, there's nothing
new under the sun. We'll tax the rich. So he did that. OK, he died a natural death.
Then Pekahiah, his son, came to the throne. He's in verse
23. In the 50th year of Azariah,
king of Judah, Pechahiah, son of Menachem, became king over
Israel and Samaria and reigned two years. Again, more instability. Look at verse 25. Another assassination. And that one in verse 25 comes
from within his own political administration. Now, we could
go on, but I think you get the picture of the social chaos that
was breaking out as that kingdom declined. King after king. was conspired against and assassinated.
In fact, of the 17 kings, the whole history of the Northern
Kingdom from the time of Jeroboam I all the way to the end, 210
years, 17 kings, only eight died natural
deaths. All the others were conspired
against and assassinated by their successors. Now come back to
Hosea 7 and we'll finish. This is what Hosea is talking
about in verse 7, what we just went through. This real period
of their history. He says, I'll show you a truth
about your nation by talking about the baker and his oven
and the dough. You people, you have the Torah. God told you what you should
be doing. You don't do it. You don't learn loyalty to me.
You're not concerned with private property. You're not concerned
with the sanctity of life. You commit these atrocities over
and over and over. And if a nation does that every
time, it's going to come back to haunt them every time. The whole thing
will go right down the drain in political conspiracy. The
murders will be rampant. Now, why? The end of verse 7
is there to tell you why. None of them calls on me. It's
just pathetic. In other words, even in the 11th
hour of the nation, when everything was falling to pieces, one administration
succeeding another administration succeeded another administration.
Complete political chaos. In spite of all this, you think
somebody would say, hey, you think we might have a spiritual
problem? No one. Not a single person goes to God
to find out what the trouble is. Now, I don't have to say
anything to get the analogy clear across to this side of the world. But it's the same story, and
this comes right out of the text of the Bible. Now, we've been
through the text. If there are any questions, I'll
field those since we have five minutes. But if not, we'll just
close with a word of prayer. Yes. Yes, Carol. Using the Baker's analogy, you're
saying we don't need to do it that way. That's right. You're
saying nature gets hot and it gets hotter and hotter and hotter
until it gets out of control and things get obviously out of control,
out of control, spending out of control. Other other areas.
Yes, ma'am. Where did Hosea teach these?
things to the people of the northern kingdom of Israel. I really don't
know. We know very little about Hosea.
Obviously, we know who his children were and who his wife were. And
but as far as I've gone in the book, I haven't been able to
discover exactly where. I mean, obviously now Samaria
is the capital. I mean, it's the chief city. And, you know,
it's mentioned, I think, in verse two or something like that in
our chapter. And that was sort of the heart
of the kingdom. That's where the kings were and the princes were. That's
where a lot of the partying was going on. That's mentioned a lot in
Amos, his prophecy, too. So a lot of it was directed against
them. There's a lawsuit in Amos chapter four, chapter three and
four. That talk about other nations
coming to watch the atrocities and chaos in Samaria as this
sort of like that center stage. And but I'm not exactly sure
where he preached. In fact, a lot of these chapters,
it's very difficult to tell when he preached them. I said tonight,
for example, this chapter seems like he preached it closer down
to 721 because he's seen all these political administrations
get succeeded one by the other. But some of the other chapters
seem a lot earlier, you know, like the things about having
the children with Gomer and so forth. That's very early. That's
probably around 750. So all of of Hosea's prophecies
come over the span of about 40 to 50 years. So it's difficult
to tell when. And when I see there's a hint
at one where earlier or later, I kind of point those out. But
where is also difficult. Just probably center on the major
areas. Dan, Bethel, Samaria, things
like that. Places like that. All right. Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. Was Gomer a believer? Was Gomer
a believer? You know, I can't. I can't. I
don't know. I can tell you what she was, but that's about all that I can
tell you. And if she was, you know, if
she was restored to her husband, you know, in the end, as the
nation Israel is restored to her right God in the end, then
there's a possibility that on the tail end of things she got
with the program and then she'd be another example of Rahab.
So, yes, harlots can go to heaven. Murderers can too. And God is
God of grace. And his son died for every sin
in the world and not just the special ones that we think he
got died for. He handled them all, including
the ones we don't have difficulty with. And therefore, it's by
grace through faith that we have an eternal relationship with
him. Not because of anything that we've done, of course. So
it's a possibility. All right. Let's if there's not
anything else. OK, we'll just close with a word
of prayer.
Hosea 6:11-17, The Nation's Failure to Learn Loyalty: Theft
Series Hosea
| Sermon ID | 1018212135438072 |
| Duration | 51:42 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Hosea 6:11-17 |
| Language | English |
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